Daily Archives: May 3, 2017

When an unbeaten 2-year-old champion goes to stud, there is a certain amount of fanfare, and with the retirement of 2012 Eclipse Award champion Shanghai Bobby (by Harlan’s Holiday), who had gone undefeated in his five starts at 2, commercial breeders were queuing up immediately to breed to the quick and good-looking dark brown horse at Ashford Stud.

Part of the reason for their interest is the horse’s pedigree. Shanghai Bobby is by the successful and highly popular stallion Harlan’s Holiday (Harlan), a grandson of leading sire Storm Cat and a factor for speed and early maturity in racing stock that made him quite popular with buyers and breeders.

When Shanghai Bobby went to stud in 2014, Harlan’s Holiday was receiving accolades as a sire of stallions because of the high-class performers resulting from the first crops by the young Harlan’s Holiday horse Into Mischief. Further, Shanghai Bobby is out of a good mare by champion sprinter Orientate (Mt. Livermore). So the champion juvenile colt unifies two of the fast and classy lines in America breeding: Storm Cat and Blushing Groom.

Breeders were anticipating that Shanghai Bobby would get attractive foals that became irresistible 2-year-olds, and the international breeding behemoth, Coolmore Stud, acquired Shanghai Bobby as a stallion for its Ashford Stud in Kentucky as part of their sequential acquisition of American 2-year-old champions that include Lookin at Lucky (Smart Strike), Uncle Mo (Indian Charlie), Hansen (Tapit), and American Pharoah (Pioneerof the Nile).

Of those, the undeniably most successful so far has been Uncle Mo, and Shanghai Bobby fit right in with the group as a fast, attractive horse who seems well-suited to the racing and sales program here in the States.

The fast-acting breeders got it right.

From his first-crop yearlings in 2016, 71 young prospects by Shanghai Bobby brought an average of $109,324 and a median price of $85,000. Those figures represent a very healthy 5x and 4x multiple over the horse’s 2014 initial stud fee of $20,000 live foal. The first-crop yearlings sold so well that Shanghai Bobby’s 2017 fee is listed as $25,000, a rise of 25 percent for a fourth-year horse over his entering fee.

That is virtually unheard of.

With the level of first-crop cash assessments that Shanghai Bobby’s yearlings achieved, observers would have expected to see the Shanghai Bobby stock go through the roof at the premium sales of 2-year-olds in training. That has not happened prior to last week’s OBS April sale (25-28), with only a half-dozen previously sold for an average price of $167,500 and a median of $117,500. That isn’t hamster feed; so we shouldn’t read too much into the initial figures.

With 22 consigned to the OBS April sale, we have learned a good deal more about how they have matured and how they stand in the assessment of racehorse buyers from around the world. Sixteen of the 2-year-olds worked (six were declared out), and four sped a furlong in :10 flat. Five more went down the lane in :10 1/5, and we can say the prospects will not fail for lack of speed. Sales results are below: